Chapter 21
“Liar!”
But Daisy shouted right back, refusing to yield.
In love? Impossible. He couldn’t even remember.
“I’m not in love with the woman I spent that night with. I’m in love with you, the woman who spent all day yesterday helping me with that ridiculous search!”
“What kind of insane nonsense is that?!”
Anyone watching would have thought they had both lost their minds. One was perched atop a dragon, the other leaning precariously out of the window of a towering spire, shouting at each other at the top of their lungs, neither willing to back down. It was absolute madness.
Or perhaps people would simply think, Now that’s one spectacular lovers’ quarrel. Or, What an outrageously dramatic confession of love.
“I think you’re beautiful!”
“Have you gone mad?!”
“I want to go to the Harvest Eve Festival with you!”
“I’m not going!”
“I want to kiss you!”
“Get out of here this instant!”
“Daisy Freyan!”
After shouting her name, Aaron let go of the dragon’s reins.
In an instant, the color drained from Daisy’s face. What on earth was that madman trying to do? And then, her worst fear became reality. Releasing the reins, Aaron threw himself toward the window where she was leaning out.
“Aaron Schmidt!”
You crazy idiot!
The words nearly burst from her lips. Launching himself from the dragon’s back, Aaron soared toward the window, his hands clamping tightly onto the windowsill as he hung suspended in midair. Afraid he might fall, Daisy immediately reached out and gripped both of his arms with all her strength.
The dragon was already soaring off into the distant sky. Before he knew it, Aaron was left dangling from the highest tower in the royal palace. Looking up at Daisy, who was desperately holding onto his arms, he flashed her a bright smile. Even at a moment like this, he was an impossibly charming man. She couldn’t deny it.
“If you’ll go to the Harvest Eve Festival with me, then pull me up. If not, just let go.”
Let go? If she did, he would be smashed beyond recognition. And yet he was telling her to let him go?
“I’m not going to the festival.”
“Then let go.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I just thought if it’s for you, Daisy, I wouldn’t mind losing it.”
It infuriated her that, even while hanging in the most dangerous situation imaginable, he was grinning from ear to ear. She wanted to let go, but she couldn’t.
“How did you know it was me?”
Having finally resigned herself to everything, Daisy asked one last question. She wanted to know only that much: how he had figured it out. Where, exactly, had her perfect spell gone wrong?
“Because I fell in love with you. There was no way I couldn’t realize it was you.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“It’s not that I fell in love with you because you were her. It’s that I fell in love with you, and then realized that the woman I’d fallen in love with was her.”
“That makes even less sense. It’s getting more and more impossible to understand….”
Yet even as she said that, Daisy’s face gradually brightened.
There was nothing she could do now. This hopeless man had made such an outrageous spectacle that everyone knew. Unless she erased the memories of every single person who had witnessed what had just happened, there was no turning back. But erasing everyone’s memories was an extraordinarily taxing spell. Even for a Grand Archmage, it was far more than Daisy could manage alone.
“Come up first. Then we’ll talk.”
“If I come up… you’ll let me kiss you, right?”
At the shameless remark, Daisy was overcome with the urge to let go of the hands she was holding. But murder was a crime, so she barely restrained herself.
And the very moment the man climbed into the tower, just as he had promised, the first thing he did was kiss her.
Because the kiss took place inside the tower, the spectators below never saw it.
But did not seeing it mean they wouldn’t know?
And so, that day, everyone present learned the truth. The birth of a couple no one had ever imagined: the Gold Hand Holy Knight and the Grand Archmage. It was, without question, the pairing of the century.
The only thing that truly piqued the curiosity of the Holy Knights gathered beneath the tower that day was just how old the Grand Archmage really was and whether her face was actually covered in warts.
After all, the Aaron Schmidt they knew was the kingdom’s most notorious philanderer, a man who was famously particular about a woman’s appearance.
Their other great curiosity was whether Aaron Schmidt, the man who had made this unprecedented confession of love, would actually remain faithful. Some wagered he wouldn’t even last a week, while others bet that, at best, he’d make it a month.
Contrary to all of their expectations, however, Aaron Schmidt’s devotion endured all the way to that year’s Harvest Eve Festival, where he ultimately proposed to her.
And so, in the end, not a single person who had placed a bet won any money. A rather unfortunate tale, or so it was said.
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